Sandyford meadow

Does anyone know where this is. I'd never heard of it. I have been doing some local research and it's a place where they used to execute people

 

Explained here...

http://staffscc.net/wppalmer/?page_id=236

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....-staffordshire-crimes-were-2496630.amp?espv=1

But no exact place given...

And mentioned here to...

http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/staffs.html

 

Presumably, somewhere in the vicinity of the current prison.

http://staffscc.net/wppalmer/?page_id=236

'Meadow' would imply somewhere alongside Sandyford Brook, probably.

 

It says somewhere along the Stafford to Sandyford Road, but doesn't give an exact place at all...

 

Here, it says Sandyford was just south of Stafford...


https://blackcountrymuse.webs.com/executioners.htm



But they only took place there till 1793, from then on they were performed just outside the prison walls.

 

Ah-ha! Here it states, executions took place at Sandyford Bridge on the Hopton Road.


https://archive.org/stream/staffordinolden00chergoog/staffordinolden00chergoog_djvu.txt

 

A road to Hopton and a road to Sandon could well be one and the same thing, at the town end.

'Sandy ford' could well just refer to a description of the crossing of the brook, possibly at an earlier time, since replaced with a bridge.

Roads can change their course, especially when large projects (such as a prison?) are undertaken.

One imagines that such 'entertainments' would not be taking place far from the town's inhabited areas.


I would suspect it's somewhere along Sandyford Brook, from the Queensway to around The Tap, with a bias towards the southern end

 

I would guess by the bridge as it looks to be on a boundary - favourite place for executions, and by a road so that passers by could see the corpse hanging.

 

I absolutely adore cricket, but i feel that Marston Road would've been an absurdly high scoring venue.

Even with my measly powers with the bat i can see the boundary rope being oft tickled.

 

My current home is essentially the poltergeist house then.

 

I lived in Sandyford Street as a youngster (since demolished due to salt mining) and my grandmother (1874-1961) used to insist that there had been gallows more or less on the site of our house (!). If ever a sash window suddenly dropped shut or a door slammed by itself she would say it was an “earthly manifestation of the tormented souls who’d died at the hands of the executioner”, or words to that effect. Grim stuff for a 6 year old to process.

She couldn’t explain to me why she didn’t have a reflection though. (ok, I made that last bit up, but the rest was true).

 

Don't dig too deep in the garden. The bodies from the gallows were often thrown into quite shallow pits around the gallows.

 

That's interesting. Maybe it was there then